IBM fits a bit on an atom, eyeing ever-smaller devices

While many IT departments grapple with big data, IBM says it has the smallest data in the world: one bit on one atom.Researchers at IBM’s Almaden lab in San Jose, California, have written and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism, a feat they say is a world first. It could lead to storage that’s hundreds of times denser than anything available now, able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit card, the company says.Mu